1. Calculated from Report of the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment 1949–1953 (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office: 1953), 298–301, 326–27; Home Office Criminal Statistics England and Wales (1900–1965) and authors’ collected data. We use “people of color” in place of “coloured persons” which was the term used in the contemporary sources upon which this article draws, conscious that neither can be used unproblematically. Contemporary terms and their implications are further discussed in the body of the article, see also footnote 61.

2. The Black and Asian population in Britain is estimated to have been 7,000 in 1939, 74,500 in 1951, and 500,000 in 1962; see Webster, Wendy, “Home, Colonial and Foreign: Europe, Empire and the History of Migration in Twentieth-Century Britain,” History Compass 8 (2010): 35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Waters, Chris, “‘Dark Strangers in Our Midst’: Discourses of Race and Nation in Britain, 1947–1963,” Journal of British Studies 36 (1997): 209CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. RC on Capital Punishment (1953), 326. In total, fifty-seven men of color were sentenced to death from 1900 to 1965. Two were found insane post-conviction and sent to Broadmoor, and two successfully appealed against their convictions. Of the remaining fifty-three considered for reprieve, eighteen had their sentences commuted to imprisonment and thirty-five were hanged.

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9. Calculated from RC on Capital Punishment (1953), 298–301, 326–27 and authors’ collected data.

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11. The criminal justice system of Scotland is and was separate from that of England and Wales. Throughout the article, we refer to “Britain” where this is more accurate than “England and Wales” in relation to the point or topic in hand.

12. Calculated from RC on Capital Punishment (1953), 298–301, 326–27; and Criminal Statistics England and Wales (1942–1955) and authors’ collected data.

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17. A 2019–22 research project by Alexa Neale is exploring these volumes, funded by the Leverhulme Trust: “Black Books: The Institutional Memory of Hanging and Mercy at the Home Office” (ECF-2018-448).

18. Sarat, Austin, Mercy on Trial: What it Means to Stop an Execution (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 103CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On discretionary justice as shaped by race, gender, and class, see Miller, Vivien M.L., Crime, Violence, and Clemency: Florida's Pardon Board and Penal System in the Progressive Era (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000)Google Scholar; and Blue, Ethan, Doing Time in the Depression: Everyday Life in Texas and California Prisons (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 213–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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20. See Peté and Devenish, “Flogging, Fear and Food.”

21. Seal, Capital Punishment, 101. Eight men of color were recommended for mercy by their jury: one was acquitted on appeal, one certified insane, three received mercy, and three were executed.

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25. The National Archives (hereafter TNA), HO 384/158: Capital cases: vol 1 (1901–65).

26. Capital cases vol 1, 361–64: “Murder by coloured persons” lists fifteen men further described as “‘West Indian,” thirteen described as “Indian,” seven described as “Chinese,” four described as “West African” or “East African,” two described as “Arab,” two described as “Somali,” one described as “Burmese,” one described as “Eurasian,” and one described as “American half-bred Japanese.” A further two listed as “coloured” were Black American men, and one man born in England was described as a “coloured seaman, W[est] Indian negro father and Brit[ish] mother.” Seven additional capital cases were included because contemporary sources racialized the defendant by reference to the color of their skin, usually as “coloured.” Of these, three were born in London and of mixed heritage, two were described as having “Anglo-Indian” parents, one was “Chinese,” and another was “Arab.”

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29. Turrell, White Mercy, 4.

30. Ibid., 16.

31. See Radzinowicz, Leon and Hood, Roger, A History of English Criminal Law and its Administration from 1750. Volume 5 (London: Stevens and Sons, 1986), 677–81Google Scholar.

32. Chadwick, Roger, Bureaucratic Mercy. The Home Office and the Treatment of Capital Cases in Victorian Britain (New York: Garland Publishing, 1992)Google Scholar.

33. Stoler, “Archival Dis-ease.” On the academic and investigatory discourse, see Lorimer, Douglas, Science, Race Relations and Resistance: Britain, 1870–1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013), 61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34. Wiener, Martin J., An Empire on Trial: Race, Murder, and Justice under British Rule, 1870–1935 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 20–21Google Scholar.

35. HO 144/216/A49165: Home Office Criminal Papers: Arthur, Charles (1888); HO 144/239/A52652: Jassiwarra, Bahagwar (1891); Wiener, Empire on Trial, 37.

36. Wiener, Empire on Trial, 34–37; Conley, Carolyn A., Certain Other Countries: Homicide, Gender, and National Identity in Late Nineteenth-Century England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2007), 59, 73Google Scholar.

37. King and Wood, “Black People and the Criminal Justice System.”

38. HO 144/224/A50020: Allen, Thomas (1889), Letter, Rev. J. Griffiths to Home Secretary, April 3, 1889.

39. Loo, “Savage Mercy.”

40. HO 144/1441/302481/2: Hill, Young (1915), Justice Ridley to Jury; Foreman of Jury, Trial Transcript, 31–32.

41. HO 144/1441/302481: Hill (1915), Report, Ernley Blackwell to Home Secretary, November 24, 1915; Petition, Quilliam and Son [solicitors] to Home Secretary, same date.

42. Conley, Certain Other Countries, 59. The cases from our research do not offer a straight comparison, as they include men born in the Caribbean and on the British mainland.

43. Lorimer, Science, Race Relations and Resistance, 314–21.

44. Seal and Neale, “In His Passionate Way.”

45. HO 144/7470: Khan, Ajun Sherif (1920), Memo, Blackwell to Home Secretary, August 25, 1920.

46. See also Strange, “Introduction,” 9.

47. HO 144/907/176776: See, Lee (1909), Mary Parslow to Home Secretary, March 29, 1909.

48. HO 144/2740: Doon (1922), Newspaper clipping “Chinese Sentenced to Death,” The Times, December 2, 1923.

49. As Saha argues, the Karen nationalists, Christians, and former colonial officials who petitioned the Home Office on San Dwe's behalf emphasized the contrast between his Christianity and victim Ali's Islam. Dwe revealed to the prison medical officer that Ali had raped him; Ali was portrayed as both sexual predator and disloyal to British rule. Saha, Jonathan, “Murder at London Zoo: Late Colonial Sympathy in Interwar Britain,” American Historical Review 121 (2016): 1481–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50. TNA, ASSI 52/532: Assizes, Northern Circuit: Criminal Depositions and Case Papers: Banks, Willoughby Ernest (1942), Deposition, Miriam Finklestone, December 11, 1941.

51. TNA, DPP 2/959: Director of Public Prosecutions: Case Papers: Banks (1942), Justice Oliver to Jury, Trial Transcript, 41.

52. HO 384/158: Capital cases: vol 1, 362.

53. DPP 2/959: Banks (1942), Justice Oliver to Jury, Transcript, 40.

54. Rose, Sonya, “Race, Empire and British Wartime National Identity, 1939–45,” Historical Research 74 (2001): 220CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

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56. HO 384/158: Capital cases: vol 1, 362.

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59. Seal, Capital Punishment, 110–13. The project on which this article draws focused on capital cases as defined and tried by the courts of England and Wales and therefore cases of black American servicemen tried by United States courts martial in Britain during the Second World War were not part of the study.

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62. The Daily Mirror, June 4, 1943, 4; Liverpool Echo, May 19, 1943, 4; HO 144/21870: Roe, Gerald Elphingstone (1943), Newspaper clipping, The Morning Advertiser, May 20, 1943.

63. HO 144/21870: Roe (1943), P.E.J. Minvalla to Home Secretary, July 26, 1943; and Notes by Justice Humphreys, June 17, 1943.

64. HO 144/21870: Roe (1943), Report on Minvalla's petition, Frank Newsam to Home Secretary, July 29, 1943.

65. HO 144/21870: Roe (1943), Minvalla to Home Secretary, July 26, 1943.

66. HO 144/21870: Roe (1943), Newsam to Home Secretary, July 29, 1943.

67. Ibid.

68. HO 144/22221: Gordon, Horace Beresford (1944–45), Memorandum, Frank Newsam, January 2, 1945.

69. HO 144/22221: Gordon (1944–45), Horace Gordon examined by J. P. Eddy for defense and cross-examined by Linton Thorp for Prosecution, December 1, 1944, Trial Transcript, 57–69.

70. HO 144/22221: Gordon (1944–45), Justice Humphreys to Jury, December 1, 1944, Transcript, 79.

71. HO 144/22221: Gordon (1944–45), Statements, Elvina Morris, September 28, 1944; Private Burton Shaw, September 20, 1944; and Andrew Sopp, September 14, 1944.

72. HO 144/22221: Gordon (1944–45), Statements: Private Hibbert Hamilton, September 29, 1944; Lance Corporal John Haughn, October 2, 1944; Private Edward Adams and Lance Corporal Charles Jones, October 6, 1944; and Corporal James Fitzmaurice and Evelyn Hutchings, October 10, 1944.

73. HO 144/22221: Gordon (1944–45), Humphreys to Jury, Transcript, 83.

74. HO 384/158: Capital cases: vol 1, 362.

75. DPP 2/1317: Berry [Philip] (1945), Metropolitan Police Report, Detective Inspector J. Black to Superintendent E. Seymour, January 18, 1945.

76. DPP 2/1317: Berry (1945), Statement, Fred White, January 20, 1945.

77. DPP 2/1317: Berry (1945), Police Report.

78. DPP 2/1317: Berry (1945), Statement, P.C. Cecil Isdell, January 17, 1945. Had police admitted to prompting this comment by questioning Berry in the car it would have been inadmissible in court. It was important to the prosecution because it suggested that he was commenting on the victim having used these epithets, therefore placing him at the scene.

79. DPP 2/1349: Berry, [Philip] Murder appeal (1945), Justice Macnaghten to Jury, Transcript, 78.

80. DPP 2/1349: Berry (1945), Brief for respondent, March 19, 1945. Home Office report unavailable.

81. DPP 2/1349: Berry (1945), D.I. Black cross-examined by Mr O'Sullivan [defence], Transcript, 38.

82. HO 384/158: Capital cases: vol 1 (1901–65), 362.

83. See Perry, Kennetta Hammond, London Is the Place for Me: Black Britons, Citizenship, and the Politics of Race (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 14–17Google Scholar. Empire Windrush brought approximately 500 migrants from the Caribbean to Britain in 1948. More broadly, the “Windrush narrative” refers to the propensity to see this moment as the origin of a more multicultural Britain, “obscur[ing the] history of Black presence and Britain's racialized past,” at 14.

84. RC on Capital Punishment (1953), 326.

85. Criminal Statistics England and Wales (1942–1955) and authors’ collected data.

86. Waters, “Dark Strangers,” 207–238.

87. HO 384/158: Capital cases: vol 1, 363, for example “Estridge, William (1955). West Indian … A deliberate, premeditated and ruthless murder the mitigating circ[umstance]s of which w[oul]d not themselves have justified clemency but in view of progress of Abolition Bill – Respited.”

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89. TNA, J 82/10: Court of Criminal Appeal, Case Papers: Estridge, W. (1956), E. Ryder Richardson [defence] to Jury, Transcript, 81–87.

90. Waters, “Dark Strangers”; and Webster, Imagining Home.

91. J 82/21: Singh, G. (1956–57) P. Back [defence] to Jury, Transcript, 177–79.

92. DPP 2/2531: Jordan, Clinton [and others] (1956), James Jordan examined by Mr Veale for defence, Transcript (fourth day), 14–23.

93. DPP 2/2531: Jordan (1956), Veale to Jury, Transcript (fourth day), 43–51.

94. DPP 2/2531: Jordan (1956), Justice Byrne to Jury, Transcript (fourth day), 52–58 and (fifth day), 2–18.

95. DPP 2/3485: Grey, Oswald (1962), Report: R.B. Stanley [Psychiatrist], Monyhull Hospital, July 19, 1962, to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

96. Notions of post-war Black migrants as rootless and adrift, with homes and family structures in poor condition, identified by Webster and others, contributed to penal-welfarist interpretations of the mental health and intelligence of people of color. Webster, Imagining Home; see also Weston, Janet, Medicine, the Penal System and Sexual Crimes in England, 1919–1960s: Diagnosing Deviance (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), 62–64Google Scholar.

97. DPP 2/3485: Grey, Oswald (1962), Report: P.M. Coats, Senior Medical Officer, H.M. Prison Birmingham, July 18, 1962, to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

98. HO 291/2171: Grey, Oswald (1962), Newsam to Henry Brooke, November 6, 1962.

99. Perry, London Is the Place for Me, 14–17.

100. Carolyn Strange, “Introduction,” in Qualities of Mercy, 3; and Sarat, Austin, “When Can or Should Legal Judgment Be Merciful? An Introduction,” in Merciful Judgments and Contemporary Society: Legal Problems, Legal Possibilities, ed. Sarat, Austin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 15Google Scholar.

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